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Okay, a question: I have a github (http://github.com/blhack http://github.com/blhack -- nothing too interesting there), but only use it in the "free" way; savi

by blhack 14y ago

Okay, a question: I have a github (http://github.com/blhack http://github.com/blhack -- nothing too interesting there), but only use it in the "free" way; saving my javascript stuff, and keeping track of some arduino projects. "Github" and "money" in the same thought here triggered me wondering about maybe buying a monthly plan from them, and letting them host all of my code for work, play, etc. (stuff I'm too embarrassed to release, ha) Maybe I'm just naive, but how large are most git repos? You can get a full pizza box, in a rack, with power and data, and plenty of storage for $50/mo. You could get two redundant linodes for $40/mo. What are people getting out of github that they are willing to spend as much money as some of these plans cost? (What I mean is: if this was $5/mo for unlimited repos, I'd have a plan now. But $7/mo for 5? That seems steep)

brntbeer 14y ago
TPW (or some early GH employee) has posted somewhere that yes, the cost of servers on your own is cheaper. However, the original goal of GitHub was to build a tool that allowed collaboration easier. You pay for the experience and the tools and the network IMO.
- blhack 14y ago
  Ah, gotcha. I guess I was missing out on the social aspect of it. But I have to wonder: if you're hosting that many private repos...how much does "social" play into it?
  - andreaja 14y ago
    You can add collaborators to private repos (ie people with push rights). You can have organizations with private repos and use the collaboration tools within the organization. For me, the private repos are more about having them where I have my other code.
  - kennywinker 14y ago
    Change social to collaborative and you've got your answer.
  - mtodd 14y ago
    Collaborating with colleagues is a very social endeavor.
- Killswitch 14y ago
  Exactly, it's more than just a place to store code. Just doing git clone on your repo url is a lot easier to deal with than setting up your own git hosting and configuring everything.
gte910h 14y ago
As a person who just used linodes instead of github for awhile, jesus christ, that was an expensive use of my own time managing linux servers that did nothing other than run git. Especially collaborating with people, that was a pain in the ass. Feels expensive at first. It is not.
bdunn 14y ago
This reminds me of an email I got from somebody questioning how I could get away with charging $12/mo for my project management app, since the true cost of storing the few hundred or so database records a given account might use is so minimal. People pay for products that save them time and money. That's it. Yes, I could buy a VPS, figure out how to setup the hosted thing that ships with git, and uh - store git repositories. But that would really suck. Or I could do what I do now, and pay Github a few hundred a month to manage the dozens of private client repositories my company manages, see who on my team is committing what, and so on. I pay Github not because they store files for me, but because they've built some really nice software that makes my life easier. Finally, the issue of cost. If you need a private repository, you probably are writing some code that you (or someone else) deems as proprietary and valuable. Me, and plenty of other people, will gladly pay monthly what equates to less than the cost of a slice of pizza and a drink for what we get in return.
slig 14y ago
Go with RepositoryHosting.com, 6 bucks a month and you can host 2GB worth of code, unlimited users, repos, git, svn and hg. Also it backups to your S3 account.
zalew 14y ago
> if this was $5/mo for unlimited repos, I'd have a plan now http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org $0/mo for unlimited repos, you got an even better plan now
- shepbook 14y ago
  One thing most people don't mention about bitbucket is the cost of their plans. Github: $7/mo for 5 repos, unlimited collaborators. Bitbucket: $0/mo for unlimited repos, 5 collaborators max. Then, it starts at $10/mo for 10 collaborators and continues at a tiered rate of $1/mo per collaborator until you hit $200/month. Only then is it unlimited on collaborators.
  - zalew 14y ago
    yes, but it's not blhack's use case, from what I read he wants unlimited privates for his own work and the free plan meets his needs.
franzus 14y ago
> Maybe I'm just naive, but how large are most git repos? The last 2 private repos I created grew to ~800mb each. And those were rather small projects. (We put PSDs and raw audio into the repo.)
nathan_f77 14y ago
Nobody should pay for GitHub just because they need a place to dump their code. If you want free, unlimited, private git repos, just sign up for https://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.org/ GitHub is what you might choose if you need to work on projects with a team, and want best-of-breed collaboration and code review. I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects, and Github for all my open source code. I work with a startup, and we use GitHub for all of our private repos. I love using Github, it's awesome. If I was starting my own startup, I would definitely choose Github. Bitbucket might provide all the important features, and you can host unlimited private code, for a team of up to 5 users, for free... But in the end, $7 or $12 a month is worth it for the beautiful service that Github provides.
- micro-ram 14y ago
  > I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects, Exactly. We are forced to split our code base because of the lack of free private repos on GitHub. Free private repos for 1 or 2 users would allow us to post ALL of our code on GitHub and give us the ability to sort it out and clean it up It will then be extremely easy to open-source it from there. Until they offer something free, all of our projects will remain locally stored or split between GitHub and Bitbucket and that code will NEVER get promoted to open source. Free 'limited collaboration' private repos are the key to GitHub dominating the DVCS world.
suresk 14y ago
I derive value from GitHub's services and want to support them (and I do have a $12/month plan), but I wish it scaled a little better for smaller developers who want a tiny number of collaborators (ie, 2 or less) on a large number of small projects. I have lots of private projects I'd like to host there, but the cost per repo is just too high - especially when they are all pretty small repos. $50/month is a lot to be paying for source control, so I'll probably be looking into bit bucket instead - that is probably a decent option for you to look into also.
jpalomaki 14y ago
I would argue that the pricing is actually one thing that has made Github so popular. Private repositories are a limited resource on Github for most of us due to the pricing. This encourages people to open up their stuff. Small projects that would be otherwise kept under cover are shown to the world, because we feel more comfortable in showing up unfinished code than putting up another $$/month. And this same applies especially to cloning. If private repositories were free, quite many would probably tinker with the cloned things in private. "Forcing" us to do it in public has made Github what it is.

by blhack 14y ago

brntbeer 14y ago

TPW (or some early GH employee) has posted somewhere that yes, the cost of servers on your own is cheaper. However, the original goal of GitHub was to build a tool that allowed collaboration easier. You pay for the experience and the tools and the network IMO.

blhack 14y ago
Ah, gotcha. I guess I was missing out on the social aspect of it. But I have to wonder: if you're hosting that many private repos...how much does "social" play into it?
- andreaja 14y ago
  You can add collaborators to private repos (ie people with push rights). You can have organizations with private repos and use the collaboration tools within the organization. For me, the private repos are more about having them where I have my other code.
- kennywinker 14y ago
  Change social to collaborative and you've got your answer.
- mtodd 14y ago
  Collaborating with colleagues is a very social endeavor.
Killswitch 14y ago
Exactly, it's more than just a place to store code. Just doing git clone on your repo url is a lot easier to deal with than setting up your own git hosting and configuring everything.

gte910h 14y ago

As a person who just used linodes instead of github for awhile, jesus christ, that was an expensive use of my own time managing linux servers that did nothing other than run git. Especially collaborating with people, that was a pain in the ass. Feels expensive at first. It is not.

bdunn 14y ago

This reminds me of an email I got from somebody questioning how I could get away with charging $12/mo for my project management app, since the true cost of storing the few hundred or so database records a given account might use is so minimal. People pay for products that save them time and money. That's it. Yes, I could buy a VPS, figure out how to setup the hosted thing that ships with git, and uh - store git repositories. But that would really suck. Or I could do what I do now, and pay Github a few hundred a month to manage the dozens of private client repositories my company manages, see who on my team is committing what, and so on. I pay Github not because they store files for me, but because they've built some really nice software that makes my life easier. Finally, the issue of cost. If you need a private repository, you probably are writing some code that you (or someone else) deems as proprietary and valuable. Me, and plenty of other people, will gladly pay monthly what equates to less than the cost of a slice of pizza and a drink for what we get in return.

slig 14y ago

Go with RepositoryHosting.com, 6 bucks a month and you can host 2GB worth of code, unlimited users, repos, git, svn and hg. Also it backups to your S3 account.

zalew 14y ago

> if this was $5/mo for unlimited repos, I'd have a plan now http://bitbucket.org http://bitbucket.org $0/mo for unlimited repos, you got an even better plan now

shepbook 14y ago
One thing most people don't mention about bitbucket is the cost of their plans. Github: $7/mo for 5 repos, unlimited collaborators. Bitbucket: $0/mo for unlimited repos, 5 collaborators max. Then, it starts at $10/mo for 10 collaborators and continues at a tiered rate of $1/mo per collaborator until you hit $200/month. Only then is it unlimited on collaborators.
- zalew 14y ago
  yes, but it's not blhack's use case, from what I read he wants unlimited privates for his own work and the free plan meets his needs.

franzus 14y ago

> Maybe I'm just naive, but how large are most git repos? The last 2 private repos I created grew to ~800mb each. And those were rather small projects. (We put PSDs and raw audio into the repo.)

nathan_f77 14y ago

Nobody should pay for GitHub just because they need a place to dump their code. If you want free, unlimited, private git repos, just sign up for https://bitbucket.org/ https://bitbucket.org/ GitHub is what you might choose if you need to work on projects with a team, and want best-of-breed collaboration and code review. I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects, and Github for all my open source code. I work with a startup, and we use GitHub for all of our private repos. I love using Github, it's awesome. If I was starting my own startup, I would definitely choose Github. Bitbucket might provide all the important features, and you can host unlimited private code, for a team of up to 5 users, for free... But in the end, $7 or $12 a month is worth it for the beautiful service that Github provides.

micro-ram 14y ago
> I use BitBucket to host all my solo side projects, Exactly. We are forced to split our code base because of the lack of free private repos on GitHub. Free private repos for 1 or 2 users would allow us to post ALL of our code on GitHub and give us the ability to sort it out and clean it up It will then be extremely easy to open-source it from there. Until they offer something free, all of our projects will remain locally stored or split between GitHub and Bitbucket and that code will NEVER get promoted to open source. Free 'limited collaboration' private repos are the key to GitHub dominating the DVCS world.

suresk 14y ago

I derive value from GitHub's services and want to support them (and I do have a $12/month plan), but I wish it scaled a little better for smaller developers who want a tiny number of collaborators (ie, 2 or less) on a large number of small projects. I have lots of private projects I'd like to host there, but the cost per repo is just too high - especially when they are all pretty small repos. $50/month is a lot to be paying for source control, so I'll probably be looking into bit bucket instead - that is probably a decent option for you to look into also.

jpalomaki 14y ago

I would argue that the pricing is actually one thing that has made Github so popular. Private repositories are a limited resource on Github for most of us due to the pricing. This encourages people to open up their stuff. Small projects that would be otherwise kept under cover are shown to the world, because we feel more comfortable in showing up unfinished code than putting up another $$/month. And this same applies especially to cloning. If private repositories were free, quite many would probably tinker with the cloned things in private. "Forcing" us to do it in public has made Github what it is.